On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal published a bizarre letter from wealthy venture capitalist Tom Perkins warning that the underclasses could stage a Nazi Germany-style pogrom against the wealthy.

In the piece — titled “Progressive Kristallnacht Coming?” — Perkins worried that wealthy people like himself could end up being rounded up in the night and forced into camps.

Kristallnacht, also known as the “Night of Broken Glass,” took place in early November of 1938. Nazi forces invaded Jewish neighborhoods and homes and forced them out, sending them by foot and rail to concentration camps, where millions perished.

An estimated 30,000 Jews were arrested and imprisoned on Kristallnacht. More than 90 people were murdered by SA forces and thousands of synagogues were burned to the ground. Perkins believes that a similar fate could await the tiny percentage of Americans who hold the bulk of the nation’s wealth.

“Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco,” Perkins said, “I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its ‘one percent,’ namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the ‘rich.'”

“From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent,” he lamented.

“This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent ‘progressive’ radicalism unthinkable now?” he asked.

Perkins is a senior partner in the venture capitalist firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers.

About the Author

David Ferguson is an editor at Raw Story. He was previously writer and radio producer in Athens, Georgia, hosting two shows for Georgia Public Broadcasting and blogging at Firedoglake.com and elsewhere. He is currently working on a book.